Dick Tracy by Mike Curtis and Charles Ettinger for December 13, 2010

Yet another new badge design on the Sheriff’s had.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8Tiz6INF7I

This actually restores my faith in the universe. Last week I thought Locher had given up his deranged insistence on showing one plot development for week. To have the strip show Thick arrive, pick up the prisoner, leave and encounter the first hint of the ambush threatened to turn this into an action-oriented strip.

Now all’s right with the world. This week’s plot development: Thick fancies himself as a dom.

Good point, Flight Suit. “Sheriff,” Thick says, “is that a bleeep on your hat or are you really happy to see me?”

let’s see, it could be a cow skull, or a tiny sweater…

This is pathetic. On December 8 Spacy was driving with Dr. Mordread and now on the 13th he’s telling the cop goodby to leave with the doc. Sunday recaps are one thing, but this is just garbage when the dailies don’t agree with the dailies.

Déjà vu strikes deep Into my minds it does creep Last week has come and gone And we are treated to the same old song Though things have been changed It remains the work of the deranged Continuity is just a word Whose use here is most absurd I feel like I’m in a Python sketch Though the simile may be a stretch Repetition is the rule of the day As Locher collects his pay Froggy, with his mask so short Causes in me a derisive snort The cops badge looks like a ghost Is it any wonder the strip is toast How much more can I endure Before I wind up in the stir Closer I come to my breaking point Lord, I wish I had a joint.

Great one, Wonder Warthog! You can hear the music as you read those lines. Good call on the missing mask-clips, too.

Based on the odd shape of Mordred’s mask, I think it’s Quasi Duck under there:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dH7LcVNusQE

What if it’s Homer Simpson? The goggles are the right shape and location for his eyes, and the lower part of the mask would fit his mouth.

What the– I just saw this last week! I hate how Locher does this. Why does he always rewind the story? He always retards the plot progress. We see so and so on week 1, see so and so summed up on Sunday, then see week 1 repeated AGAIN on week 2!

How many times to do I need to see Dick get into the car? This is the third time. Dick seems to be stuck in some kind of wierd time loop. *Cue Twilight Zone music

Also why are they squinting?

Well played, WW.

I can’t figure out if the badge on the sheriff’s hat is Gizmo (making him the sheriff of whatever county Kingston Falls is in) or a smug Yoda (making him the sheriff of Dagobah County). I can’t wait to see what it is the next time we see this exact same scene.

What happened to Tracy and Doc in the car driving? I thought the road was closed due to cars getting flat tires? Continuity? Not in this world…

I’m new at this strip, so I will have to lurk awhile before commenting….but I enjoyed the poem WW.

If Mordred really has been sedated, he shouldn’t be screaming. In the real world you’d have a competent medical person on hand to make sure he’s okay, because the sedative is obviously not working as expected. And if he needs to be sedated to control him during transport, the failure presents a hazard to anyone around him.

Maybe he’s just upset by his mask, which has not only lost its hooks, but has the ziper impossibly crossing that open mouth-slit.

Perhaps Spacy can take the alternate route this time, given that there’s going to be a bunch of flat tires ahead if he doesn’t

I suppose what happened is Locher and/or Brozman dropped a stack of strips they were going to submit, scattering them all over the floor. They then picked them up in the wrong order (either out of incompetence or not giving a flip), penciled in the dates, and sent them on to TMS.

Tuesday, 12/7: Tracy: “We’ll be back at my HQ in an hour, sheriff.” Mordred: “GUESS AGAIN, Mr. Law and Order.” Sheriff: “He’s chained, handcuffed, and sedated, Tracy. He should be no problem at all.

Wednesday through Sunday: Tracy drives through the storm with Mordred in his back seat.

Today: Tracy: “I’m ready to leave, Sheriff. Nice Job.”

Today’s strip might make a tad more sense (relatively speaking) if last Tuesday’s strip was scheduled for tomorrow. It gets worse later this week too.

Sigh…

(By the way, welcome back and great job, WW! Hope you’re feeling better.)

I only started reading this strip to read y’all’s comments, so I’ve never witnessed such bizarre lack of continuity. Has this been a common practice with Locher, to start an arc over again, right in the middle?

byzcath, I don’t think Locher has started over in mid-arc, but the last story (about a billionaire living on the streets) was so bizarre and incoherent that it looked like he changed his plans several times while writing it. He left a remarkable number of loose ends as well.

Here are some Tracy sites that may interest you:

To see the way talented people outclass Locher, look at

http://www.plainclothescomics.com/

For vintage radio and TV shows, as well as movies:

http://www.archive.org/search.php?query=%22dick%20tracy%22

For some of the original Chet Gould comics:

http://www.ilovecomixarchive.com/D/Dick-Tracy

For a good time call

http://joshreads.com/images/10/09/Random%20Dick/comic-scrambler.html

This Locher loop back was a bad one. We’re all the way back to last Tuesday.

It’s a sheep badge! Dr. Mordred must be an international criminal. Let’s see … Canada is the beaver … Nepal is the pheasant … New Zealand is the kiwi … Australia is the kangaroo … what country is the sheep?

-Cougar :{)

mgreenhorn said, about 6 hours ago

Also why are they squinting? —————————————– That’s because the rain/sleet/snow is blowing in their eyes.

mgreenhorn The time loop is groundhog day. ———————————————– Maybe this time when Thick gets to start the road will be closed due to too much snow and they will have to put the good Dr. back in jail for the night saving us all the agony of the one hour ride. LOL

Memo from the Department of Redundancy Department: It’s Deja vu all over again.

The sheriff looks like Smilin’Jack! Maybe they’ll have a China Clipper ferry the prisiner to his destination!!!

“life has a funny way of repeating itself,” except in locherworld it’s not funny.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T_yDWQsrajA

Tomorrow’s strip: Tracy thanks the homeless guys for solving his case and rescuing him from 3-D.

Ludwig! What’s the link to the look-ahead? I’m going to be away for a week and won’t have my computer and I’ll be darned if I pay $10 to go to an internet cafe to read Locher’s garbage!

Welcome, Florchi. With Brenda Starr ending, you decided to check DT out? I have to warn you, there’s a reason that people complain about this comic even in other comics’ forums.

Nice one, captainzero!

Thanks, BillT. Actually, it was the Curmudgeon that pushed me to start paying attention to DT on line. I read Gould’s DT as a kid, but didn’t know that it had gone downhill so badly in recent years. I love y’all’s snarks here- it makes the strip bearable. I just wish I was witty enough to join in!

Byzcath, you don’t have to be witty to join in the conversation. Matter-of-fact, you can ba a half-wit. Just look at Simon Penn, Mattie, and Jeffie, to mention a few. And THEY take the center ring when they show up!

You guys think this strip is confusing - you should try following Alley Oop.

Is that Casper the Friendly Ghost on his cap ?

Seems to be more entertainment this time round !

The response to repetition has been ELECTRIC.

Monday ! - Forty four posts and counting …

What is this? Deja Vu all over again? Has Dick stepped into the “Groundhog Day” twilight zone? Tomorrow,will we again see Liz telling him he has to go get the prisoner?

I’d opine that Tracy’s face in panel 1 was Brozman’s art … It seems so ‘off model’, but the Little Face Finney hand brands it as Locher’s

In a desperate attempt to make some sense of what’s happening…

As a former professional software guy, I’m thinking the “reboot” of the strip today is just that: I think Locher in fact stopped writing this strip some time ago, and is now using some variation on the Curmudgeon’s random panel generator to produce the strip. Trouble is, he forgot to save his work before rebooting his computer the other day, so he’s had to re-start the strip from the last saved version of the story, which still has Macy back at the police station getting ready to leave.

Wait… that makes too much sense for DT these days…

LOL I agree, puddleglum1066! The last story was an exercise in “huh??” Great poem, WW! Nice to have you back :)

God, I miss those SPAM(s)

CougarAllen said, about 8 hours ago

It’s a sheep badge! Dr. Mordred must be an international criminal. Let’s see … Canada is the beaver … Nepal is the pheasant … New Zealand is the kiwi … Australia is the kangaroo … what country is the sheep?

-Cougar :{)

~Wyoming~

Florchi get ready to have your mind numbed.

If this week is a rerun of last week, will next week be a rerun of this week?

France, along with the white flag.

Great question Vista Bill !

Hmm … do Wyoming state police wear a badge in the shape of a sheep? They might, in Locher’s universe….

-Cougar :{)

margueritem said, “~Wyoming~”

Wyoming is one of my favorite cities.

Morrow, http://rss.tmsfeatures.com/rss-bin/imagepreview.cgi?id=20101213csdty-a.tif&provider=TMS

Just change the date in the link. It won’t give you Sunday strips.

I spotted the same thing as neonleon59.

Tracy leaves Rivertown twice with his prisioner.

Then the road is blocked due to vehicles with flat tires.

Then we are back at Rivertown sending Tracy on his way.

Go back and start reading from Sunday Dec. 5 and you will see how things are really screwed up more than normal.

@ Ludwig and Morrow… The link for Sunday strips is:

http://rss.tmsfeatures.com/rss-bin/imagepreview.cgi?id=20101226csdty-s.jpg&provider=TMS

Note the .jpg instead of .tif, plus there are five underscores after TMS at the end that aren’t showing up because of the way comments work here.

Follow this link then look at the URL it takes you to:

http://tinyurl.com/2abntfy

What happened to the detour because of 4 cars with flats>

neonleon59, that link tells us why Testicle Chin vanished. He went home to watch his DVD of “Twelve O’Clock High.” Maximum effort! He decided he wants to be Ira Eaker when he grows up? “Put on your all-weather gear!” Yeah, you want to hurry up and help Thick, but not at the risk of catching a cold.

Someone needs to tell Locher that those newfangled Tiros thingies not only worked out, but grew into part of a system that lets us know when big storms are coming. But then if the authorities had looked at the weather forecast and decided the storm would be a problem, Locher wouldn’t have a story.

Not that he had one in the first place.

This is the plot that neeeever ends, it just goes on and on my frieeeends. Locher started drawing it ‘cuz he didn’t know what it was, and we’ll all go on reading it forever just because, this is the plot that neeeeever ends…

The link Neonleon posted for Sunday previews works, but the link LudwigVonDrake posted for dailies doesn’t work for me.

-Cougar :{)